Mere Murder
by Mi Ling Chi
Summary: After the death of her partner Kohaku, Rin is assigned a new partner named Tojo Sesshōmaru. Problem is, he's a demon. She doesn't want him, but the job comes first. Off together on a whirlwind of excitement, intrigue, action, and mystery, the two solve murder cases all over Japan and even go toe to toe with a mysterious serial killer targeting women who look more and more like Rin.
1. Why Howdy Partner

**AN: **Been watching lots of Criminal Minds lately and reading thrillers so... Ta-da!

* * *

_"Rin, your obsession with this case in unhealthy. That is why we're taking you off the case," said the plump, balding man in his mid-forties. He smelled of cigarette smoke, his teeth yellowed, and his mustache grey and untamed. His hands rested on the desk as he glared at the young officer examining the file of the case they were taking her off of._

_She lifted her brown eyes from the papers. "You're doing what now?"_

_"Taking you off the case," he repeated gruffly, pushing away from her desk so he could pace, arms crossed over his chest. "We are taking you off the case as you are unhealthily obsessed with it. You've been working on it for seven months Rin, and you barely get three hours of sleep a night. When was the last time you drank something other than coffee?"_

_"Pardon me again," Rin said coldly, closing the file. "You are doing what?"_

_"Can't you hear me Rin, or have you forgotten Japanese? You are no longer assigned to this case. You are obsessed with it, and that is impacting you very negatively, causing everyone here to be stressed. We understand; we know Kohaku was your partner and childhood friend, but the case is dead. There is no trail. Even you, our best, couldn't solve this one. We'll assign it to whoever you want, but you are no longer allowed to work on it, and if I find you working on it, I will fire you."_

_She sighed, looking wryly down at her hands as she clasped them over her chest. She chuckled before looking back at her boss, a sudden expression of seriousness replacing whatever she had been feeling prior._

_"Don't you care that one of you best officers is dead, and the man who murdered him is still out there?"_

_"I do care, that's why I want people to continue working on it. But also care about my best officer who is literally working herself to death!" She flinched when he yelled at her. "So that is why I am taking you off of this case, and giving you a week off. When you come back, you will have a new partner. No buts, no questions, just do as I say Rin. Allow yourself to grieve and move on."_

That scene had taken a place a week prior. Rin was done with her mandatory vacation, and now she stood in front of the double doors that led into the building. As her boss had ordered, she grieved. She visited Kohaku's grave, she visited his only living relative his sister Sango, and she flipped through all of her old scrap books, recalling the memories tied to the many pictures. She had slept, she had eaten good food, and she threw out all of her coffee beans because she knew the next time she had to drink that crap, she would puke.

She had woken up that morning with a passion. She was ready to return to her job, to solving crimes and bring down bad guys. She had French toast and orange juice for breakfast and had thrown on a nice pant suit. She had been bright eyed and bushy tailed, excited for what was ahead.

On her way to work though, she remembered the part where she was being assigned a new partner. That was when all of her excitement abruptly met a brick wall, and suddenly her eyes were dim and her metaphorical tail drooping. She didn't want another partner. Kohaku had been her partner, no ands, ifs, or buts. No way in hell was she going to allow some random officer to be assigned to working with her and step on her toes. Oh hell no.

But she loved her job, and she wasn't so meek that she couldn't put whoever it was that they assigned to her back in their place. She was the senior officer, she was the _better_ officer, and she would make sure that the rookie was well aware of that fact. With that, she headed into the den of wolves.

She was greeted with cheery hellos and the tired phrase of glad to have you back. She smiled, nodded, made a little chit-chat with a few people and punched in, then headed up.

Her floor was how it always was. The same people sat in the same cubicles doing the same old tasks; reading emails, taking phone calls, and the like. The janitor vacuumed in the corner. People gathered around the bulletin board or the coffee pot, whispering small talk. She didn't really pay attention to these people though, no, she was intent on the slightly ajar door to the boss's office. With a hardened gaze and an air of determination, she marched over to it and knocked.

"Come on in," he called.

Rin opened the door, instantly noting her boss sitting where he always did. She also noted the new face, the silver-hair man sitting opposite of her boss with a blue crescent moon on his forehead and two maroon stripes on each cheek. He wore cream-colored slacks and a white, button-up dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Ah, Rin, glad to have you back. I hope you had a good vacation," her boss said, standing up. "Let me introduce to you Tojo Sesshōmaru. Tojo Sesshōmaru, please let me introduce to you Ozasa Rin. Rin, this is your new partner."

Rin shot her boss a quick glare as Sesshōmaru stood and bowed to her. Rin returned the bow, a fake smile on her face.

"It'll be a please to work with you Ozasa-san."

"As well. Tojo-san, please excuse me but I would like to speak with my boss alone if that is alright with you."

Sesshōmaru nodded, bowing to the boss and exiting the room, closing the wood door behind him. As soon as he was gone, Rin dropped the act.

"Hell no. What part of me being mauled by demon wolves when I was eight don't you understand?"

"The part where it has any effect on the fact the partner assigned to you is Tojo Sesshōmaru." Rin glared at him and he rolled his eyes. "Rin, that was twenty years ago. Get over it." The boss scratched the back of his head, reseating himself in his fake leather office chair. "You and Kohaku were one of the last all-human teams in Japan. Because demons are faster, stronger, and more durable, they are often paired with humans or paired with other demons. Back when you joined, this wasn't the case, humans could work with humans. Things have changed though. You would've been forced to split from Kohaku when the changes were implemented but you were our best team. No more special treatment there though. You get a demon partner like everyone else, and you partner is Tojo Sesshōmaru. Deal with it."

Rin was fuming.

"By the way, did you know demons have better hearing than us humans?"

"Of course I do," Rin said with a sneer. A smirk crossed her face as she walked over to the doors and yanked them open, her brown eyes immediately landing on Sesshōmaru.

"And I don't work with demons, did you know that?" she yelled, startling everyone from their business. Gold eyes clashed with brown ones as someone in the distance yelped from spilling hot coffee on themselves.

She stormed away, black hair flying behind her, as the entire office watched her, Sesshōmaru and her boss who had come to stand in the doorway included.

"She's a handful as I said," began the boss as Rin slammed the door to her office. "She's the best we got though. She's one of the beautiful mind cases, pure genius and she's pretty tough too. She gets away with a lot because of that, including that temper." The boss paused to take a sip of coffee. "But you two will make a perfect team eventually."

"Eventually is the key word though," Sesshōmaru muttered.

"Indeed. In the meantime, I recommend groveling. Kohaku did it all the time to get her to come around."

He glared at the boss. "I do not grovel."


	2. Takahashi Aoi I

I would like to note that there will be anachronisms with how real detectives work. I understand that. I'm trying my best though to be plausible in how Sesshōmaru and Rin work.

* * *

A file was plopped on Rin's desk around mid-afternoon. The young officer looked up at the silver-haired man who was supposedly her partner and narrowed her eyes in a glare. Again, no way in hell was she working with this bastard.

"This is the case assigned to us."

She picked up the case, eyeing him warily as he turned his back to her and walked over to the corkboard in her office. He began tacking things up to it as she flipped through pages of her file.

"The victim is Takahashi Aoi. She is thirty-seven years of age. Born is Osaka Japan, she is of Japanese descent. She has curly brown hair, which was worn in pony-tail at the time of death. She is 5 feet tall and 183 pounds. She is overweight. At the time of death, she was found wearing denim overalls, a white, short sleeve shirt, and brown hiking boots. She was found at 9:18 last night in alley behind a grocery store in which she worked at as a cashier. Her death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head with most likely a plank of wood or a brick. The only clues found were footprints of a man with a shoe size of a male 8 wearing typical tennis-shoes."

"Have they dusted for finger prints and check security cameras," she said as she examined a photograph of some of the bloody footprints.

"Local officer have already dusted for finger prints, checked security cameras, and examined for evidence, but they want us to come down and look over everything again. No finger prints were found at the scene that were recent enough to be taken as evidence."

"Hmph." Rin flipped to another photo, this one of the victim prior to the homicide, probably a driver's license photo. It was a pretty good picture, and she certainly didn't look like she was pushing forty. Her smile was bright, her teeth white, and she seemed pretty nice.

Rin sighed, closing the file shut and looking up to Sesshōmaru who was watching her expectantly.

"I want to make this very clear before go," Rin said in tone that practically shouted no questions asked. "I will do everything within my power to get a different partner. We are not friends, we never will be friends. For now though, we will work together, we will be civil, but do not mistake civility for friendship. I do not like you, I do not want to work with you, but I do care about the people and will not have a murderer on the loose out there for very long. Do not step on my toes, do not get in my way, and what I say goes." She paused. "One more thing, I solve my cases. I am thorough and I write nothing off as coincidence. Everyone is a suspect, and nothing is as it seems. I do not fudge the records to make things seem like suicides when they really aren't. I listen to the family, I reassure, and most of all, I am not an ass to them. I am a decent person, and the person working with me better be that way or I will get you fired. Got that?"

"Understood Ozasa-san, let's go."

* * *

They arrived at the little mom and pop grocery store, Rin noting that the name of the store was Taki Produce and was closed for the day. She followed the local cop around back and ducked under the yellow tape as the local cop, Officer Sato, held it up. At the same time, Sesshōmaru too was ducking under the tape and she briefly bumped shoulders with him, causing her to glance up at her demon partner. She brushed it off and continued following Officer Sato into the alley behind Taki Produce.

There were other local police officers loitering around behind the alley, a few talking in hushed tones, one re-examining the area for clues. Where Takahashi Aoi's body had been had been out-lined in tape, the body removed. Yellow signs with numbers on them littered the scene, marking clues. The back door into Taki Produce was slightly ajar.

"We're really glad to have you both, Officer Ozasa and Officer Tojo. This one has us stumped," one man said approaching them. They turned to look at him. "I am Sato Ouga, the current lead officer but I'm fully prepared to turn everything over to you two as I'm well aware that both of you have more experience than I do in the field."

"It's a please to meet you Sato-san," Rin said with a smile, her hand out-stretched to shake hands. He took it with a smile and then offered his hand to Sesshōmaru. Sesshōmaru bowed to Officer Sato, catching the other man off guard.

"With formalities out of the way, I'd like to get straight to the point. Has Takahashi-san's family been informed?" Rin asked.

"Yes, they took it harshly but they did give us a few suspects. Her soon to be ex-husband Takahashi Nobuaki has a very violent temper and has a problem with alcohol. It was likely that he would lose custody to the children because of the divorce. They did not sign a pre-nup either. We haven't contacted him yet."

"Get on that. Are there any other suspects?"

"Yes, actually, Takahashi Nobuaki's girlfriend was caught on surveillance cameras inside Taki Produce talking to Takahashi Aoi. After interviewing the owners, it turns out that Ito Eiko, the girlfriend, had been very disruptive and forcefully removed from the property right before Takahashi Aoi got off of work. She would be in the vicinity during the murder."

Rin nodded, looking around the scene for anything that stuck out as she mulled over the information.

"Are there any camera's in the alley?" Sesshōmaru asked.

"No, sadly."

That made her job a lot harder. They had suspects, but they didn't have any substantial evidence that placed them in the alley. Still, Ito Eiko had been in the vicinity which made it easier to place her there and as she was connected to the divorce, and the soon to be ex-husband, she did have a motive for the murder.

"I want Ito Eiko brought in for questioning and a polygraph. Send people to Takahashi's place of residence for questioning and have someone check his phone records. I would like to examine the tapes as well," said Rin, beginning to walk to the back door. Behind her, Ouga nodded and began to set people to work.

"Oh, and Tojo-san," Rin said as she paused with her hand on the back door, a sneer on her lips. "Please examine the crime scene. A rookie like you should have no problem with that."


	3. Takahashi Aoi II

"Rewind that," Rin said, her melodious voice filling the room. The security officer sitting in the red swivel chair in front of her made a sound and did as ordered by the detective.

In grainy, black and white, Ito Eiko approached and entered Taki Produce wearing spandex shorts and tank-top. She wore black sunglasses on a chain around her neck and she was carrying an overly large purse. She approached the cash register that Takahashi Aoi was at, lazily leafing through a magazine while there were no customers needing attention. Eiko placed the purse down on the counter and put her hands on her hips as she began talking. Aoi looked shocked, and tried to defuse the situation. They continued to argue for a few minutes, having gathered a crowd by this point. At its climax, Eiko reached over the counter and grabbed Aoi's pony-tail. Someone at that point intervened and Eiko was thrown out of the store.

Switching to the camera around front, Eiko walked towards the side and called someone before walking in the direction of the alley.

"Someone get me information on who it was she called," Rin ordered. One of the officers behind her shot out of the room to get the information she ordered as the security guard rewound the tape again so Rin could re-watch it for the sixth time.

Eiko was definitely in the vicinity at the time of the crime. She definitely wanted to interview her as she was currently the key suspect. But who had she called. Had she called her boyfriend, the soon to be ex-husband of the victim? Was this homicide pre-planned, and were there two murderers?

Rin hummed under her breath.

"Thank you, that's all I need." Rin turned around to face the officers behind her. "Someone find Ito Eiko for me. She's my key suspect right now and I need her in for questioning."

Rin brushed past the officers scrambling to do her bidding back into the alley. Instantly her eyes landed on Sesshōmaru crouched away from the scene. Curiosity instantly filled Rin. She grabbed two water bottles and headed over to him.

"What did you find?" she asked, offering him a water bottle.

"A broke high heal and a used condom," he said pointing to the yellow sign indicting where the condom had been. "Whoever our murderers are, they were sloppy but also high on the excitement of the kill."

"How do you know the condom and the heel were our murderers?" she asked.

"I just know. There testing the condom now for DNA. I'm certain it's Nobuaki's, and the heel is Eiko's. It's just too easy," Sesshōmaru said as he opened the water bottle and took a drink. His eyes never once strayed to Rin, always intent on the heel.

"Sometimes things are not as they appear. If we're dealing with a good murderer, they know how to throw us off; they know how to make it appear as if it was someone else." Rin paused, looking around, her eyes landing on an overly large purse sitting on the ground by the trashcans with a little yellow sign beside it. "But sometimes, they really are just too easy. In this case, I'm dead certain Eiko is our culprit, or if we're dealing with two, Eiko and Nobuaki. They have motives for the murder, Eiko was in the vicinity during the crime, that's Eiko's purse over there," she said, pointing at the purse as Sesshōmaru turned his head to see it. "Eiko started a fight inside the store right before the murder, and she made a phone call right after she got kicked out before she headed in the direction of this alley. And now we have her purse…"

She paused.

"Someone get me an arrest warrant for Ito Eiko!" she yelled. "That's her purse over there."

People scrambled to do her bidding again.

"There are bricks in the purse as well, making the purse the likely murder weapon," Sesshōmaru commented as he stood.

Two officers rushed towards them. "The DNA we got from the condom showed us that it was Nobuaki's semen. Eiko called Nobuaki who was at a bar two blocks over thirteen minutes prior to the end of Aoi's shift. We have dispatched officers to interview people at the bar and we've got people on getting an arrest warrant for Ito Eiko and Takahashi Nobuaki."

"Good job. Have someone call me when you get them in custody, me and Tojo-san here are going to get some coffee." The officers nodded and rushed away.

"I don't drink coffee," he commented as the begin walking out of the alley.

"Neither do I any more, but I want a bagel.

* * *

"Admit to it," Rin said, her hands resting on the cold metal table. She stared at Ito Eiko with cold harshness. The woman, Ito Eiko, sat in the metal chair, her hands in her lap as she stared down at her hands. Eiko was also biting her lip. Rin knew to approach this with coldness, Eiko was already about to crack and the coldness would just be the extra push.

"Look," Rin began, shoving herself away from the table to pace, "I'm going to be frank with you here, we have an arrest warrant, we have DNA evidence, we have recorded evidence. We know you did this; no one's not going to be convinced that you're the criminal. However, with great likelihood you will get a lightened sentence if you just admit to it. If I were you I'd admit and give up Takahashi Nobuaki while I was at it."

She could see that Eiko was almost there. With a sigh, Rin cracked her neck and approached the table again, arms crossed over her chest.

"Eiko, you committed murder, but you're not a sociopath. I know you feel guilty, so just admit."

"Can my defense say you're trying to coerce a confession out of me," Eiko said gruffly, her brown eyes locking with Rin's.

"I'm certain they can try, I can't promise it will work." Eiko looked towards the darkened window with a group of people standing on the other side.

"I did it," she finally said. "I did it, Nobuaki helped. He distracted her while I snuck up from behind and hit her with my bag which I had filled with bricks before she got off her shift. Tossed the bag aside, fucked my boyfriend, don't know why we thought we'd get away with it but we did, and we were wrong."

* * *

"It seems too easy," Sesshōmaru commented as he sat in a chair in Rin's office, staring at the cork board that still had the pictures and documents on it. Rin was at her desk, sifting through paperwork, stopping to take a bite of her orange chicken and rice.

"Not every murderer is some genius sociopath. These two probably had been watching some TV when they got the bright idea that hey, if they can get away with it, so can I." She shoveled more orange chicken into her mouth, making a sound of pleasure as it met her taste buds. "Damn this is good."

"I would think for my first case, it would've been more… _exciting_. I'm glad we caught them but where was the life or death shoot-out?"

Rin snorted, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Let me let you in on a little secret rookie; life isn't Criminal Minds. Maybe it's because I'm a genius, but I've solved at least a quarter of all of my cases on the first day alone, and another half within the first week. Rarely do I not catch my murderer within a month, and I've only had one case where I didn't solve it. This job, I've found is incredibly easy, and cases like this are half the reason why."

Her brown eyes flicked to him, noting the pensive expression.

"Hey rookie, for a first case, you didn't do badly. Of course, without my help you probably would've taken a lot longer to solve it, but for it's worth, you were a valuable part of the team."

He glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, a quirk to his lips that said he thought she was crazy.

"What?" she said with a mouthful of rice.

"I thought you didn't like me and were going to do everything within your power to get a new partner? Or was the speech nothing more than a show?"

She sneered at him.

"What I said remains intact; I'm just saying what I thought. I still don't want you and I still don't want to be friends. In fact, get out of my office! I don't want you in here, shoo!"

He snorted, a wry smile on his face, as he pulled himself out of the chair.

"See you in the morning, Ozasa-_chan_."

"Hey!" she called after him, but the silver-haired demon was already gone.


	4. Kohaku is Dead

Sorry this took so long, there were parts of this chapter I was uncertain on. Also, Criminal Minds seasons 5 and 6 come tomorrow! Whee! Please don't forget to review.

Someone ask what Ozasa-chan meant. Chan is a Japanese honorific of endearment mostly towards or young boys. Ozasa is Rin's last name, as it is customary for people to call each other by their last names in Japan.

* * *

When Rin entered her office that morning, she found Sesshōmaru in her office and a new desk as well. No, no, no.

"No."

"Not up for discussion, Rin," the boss said, sitting at her desk, feet on her desk. He had his hands clasped over his large gut, and he was wearing his glasses. At the cork board was Sesshōmaru, removing the pictures and documents from the prior case. "You're working with Sesshōmaru, he's your partner. He's going to get his own desk in your office."

"Kohaku didn't have a desk in my office," she argued.

"Your right, he didn't. But there were so many things about you and Kohaku that weren't like other teams. Let's see, you were both human, you two didn't share an office, and you two had a history together. That's not how it's gonna be though. You two get to be like every other team out there."

"That's not fair, I got no heads up!"

"Not in the traditional sense," her boss said. "But you should've seen it coming. How are you two going to get any work done if you keep each and arm's length away?"

"We did yesterday," she pointed out.

"Yesterday was a fluke. It was an easy case, I knew that when I gave it to you. Angry ex, you've seen it a million times. But what about other cases? You and Kohaku were two peas in a pod, but you've gotta switch pods now, Rin, and Sesshōmaru is your new pea partner."

"Please do not refer to me as a pea," Sesshōmaru piped up from the corner.

"Whatever," Rin cried in anguish. "I don't want to work with him, don't you recall? Or are you already going senile on us old man?"

"Rin enough, put on you big girls pants and stop being immature. Kohaku is dead. You have to move on. Get with times, stop living in the past. You can't have everything you want." The boss sighed, running his hand through his thinning hair. Sesshōmaru's golden eyes focused on the scene, holding a picture he just taken down in his hands. Rin stood in the doorway, hands clenched, face turning red.

"Get out," she hissed. When no one made a move, she repeated herself louder. "Get out. Get out, get out, _get out!_" The boss got out and so did Sesshōmaru. She slammed the door behind her and closed the blinds on her office windows.

She wouldn't let them see her cry.

On the other side of the door, Sesshōmaru was following the boss into his office, the shocked co-workers looking everywhere but the male duo.

"That was a bit harsh, don't you think?" Sesshōmaru asked after closing the door softly behind them. "Rin is a drama queen, I can tell, but I don't think bringing up her dead partner in the manner that you did, especially if they have history together, is going to do you any good. She is still grieving, I can tell, I can also tell she has lost much in her life. I do think we must give her some slack. Kohaku's case is the only one she has never solved, and she must feel like a failure for that."

The boss snorted, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. "You don't mind, do you?"

"I do mind, please don't."

"Suit yourself," said the boss as he slipped the pack back into his pocket. "Take a seat, I want to show you something."

Sesshōmaru did as told, watching with curiosity as the boss opened a cabinet drawer and began shifting through files. He made a sound of triumph when he pulled out a thick, black file and placed it on the desk with a loud thud.

"Go ahead, look through it. It's about Rin."

Sesshōmaru looked more confused as he reached out for the folder.

"Your right, Rin's life has never been easy. When she was five, her home was broken into, her parents and siblings murdered before her very eyes, and she was held hostage. I was a part of the team that dealt with that case. It was a human trafficking ring that had abducted her. She was raped, beaten, strangled, burned, all manner of things. There she met Kohaku. They bonded instantly according to some of officers on the inside. Kohaku was a lifeline she clung too, and he protected her. When we rescued them, they were inseparable.

"Kohaku was older than her. He was eleven when we rescued him, she was eight. They had no longer been wanted and had been thrown into the middle of some very dense woods to die. That was where she was attacked by demon wolves. She nearly died. When we found them, she was comatose and he was in shock. She was in a coma for five months. During that time, Kohaku was released to the guardianship of his older sister Sango who was eighteen at the time and living with her fiancé Miroku.

"When Rin awoke, I noticed her brilliance. I told her that one day, she'd be the best officer there ever was. She was taken to an orphanage in Osaka and separated from Kohaku. There she was beaten, neglected, and when the place was seized by local officers, they said she was catatonic. I adopted her, raised her, I treated her like my little princess. She reunited with Kohaku, everything was good. She still got involved in lots of crime and it was still tough for her. She was brilliant, but she hadn't gone to kindergarten through third grade. She was behind, she was called dumb and retarded by her classmates, and she was mute. It also didn't help that the only person taking care of her, me, was always in the line of danger, risking everything.

"She did manage to skip grades, was in college pretty early despite the fact of her earlier struggles. She got involved in a gang though. Her rebellious years were hell, she barely managed to get out of stuff without a criminal record, and worst of all, the trafficking ring which we still hadn't apprehended by that time, had realized she was still alive and were hunting her down. I believe there were twenty-eight attempts on her life then, she was stalked, attacked, and much more. But Kohaku helped her through, he got her out of the gang, he saved her multiple times, and every time she tried to kill herself, he managed to stop. He even convinced me not to put her in a mental ward. Without him, Rin would be dead many times over."

Sesshōmaru nodded, a somber look on his face as he held the closed file in his lap.

"I understand that this really makes me look like an ass simply because I want her to get over Kohaku and I'm showing her so much tough love because of it, but Rin is stronger than this. Right now, she's in this funk because she doesn't realize that she's strong without him."

"That's… a lot to take in and comprehend. She has certainly lived more than her years have shown. What I don't understand though is why I was assigned to being her partner since she does seem… like… well, she's a _special_ case."

"There are reasons, but I understand that by informing you of this, you may no longer want to work with her," he replied, resting his chin on his hands, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"That is alright." Sesshōmaru stood, placing the file on the desk. "I suppose I should go check on Rin now," and with that, he left the room, the eyes of the boss on him the entire way out.

"Thought so."


End file.
